Vietnam attracts nearly 3 million foreign tourists in six months
Nearly 3 million foreign tourist arrivals visited
Vietnam
in the first six months of 2011, a year-on-year increase of 18.1 percent, reported the
Vietnam
General Statistics Office.
Over the past six months, tourists visiting
Vietnam
for travel and recreation reached more than 1.77 million, a year-on-year increase of 11.2 percent, while more than 493,000 arrivals came to
Vietnam
for business purposes, a decrease of 1.7 percent and nearly 513,000 arrivals arrived in
Vietnam
to visit relatives, a rise of 77.6 percent. For other purposes, the figure was about 186,000 arrivals, a surge of 49.7 percent. On the whole, 2.97 million tourists entered
Vietnam
for the first 6 months.
Ha Long Bay, a favorite spot for foreign tourists
Most tourists came to
Vietnam
by air, with nearly 2.5 million arrivals, making up 83 percent and a year-on-year increase of 23.8 percent.
China
still led among markets seeing increasing number of foreign tourists to
Vietnam
with 662,500 arrivals, up 51.5 percent, followed by the
Republic
of
Korea
with nearly 262,000 arrivals, up 3.7 percent, the
US
with nearly 239,000 arrivals, up 3.4 percent and
Japan
with 235,000 arrivals, up 11.7 percent.
Over the past six months,
Cambodia
saw the highest rise in the number of tourists to
Vietnam
with 77.4 percent compared to the same period last year.